wondering about pearl harbor

Started by starshippe, March 01, 2011, 03:50:49 AM

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starshippe

. . i've been sitting here watching some pearl harbor history on the military channel, and i continue to wonder why yamamoto attacked pearl harbor at a time when the carriers were not in port.
. . anyone have any facts?

thanks,
bill


shorning

#1
They were more concerned about getting the max number of battleships possible. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

Eclipse

I believe the story goes that spies in Hawaii had told the Imperial Navy that the carriers were there, but on the day of the attack they were all out to sea.

From Navy.milhttp://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-1.htm

Nagumo's fleet assembled in the remote anchorage of Tankan Bay in the Kurile Islands and departed in strictest secrecy for Hawaii on 26 November 1941. The ships' route crossed the North Pacific and avoided normal shipping lanes. At dawn 7 December 1941, the Japanese task force had approached undetected to a point slightly more than 200 miles north of Oahu. At this time the U.S. carriers were not at Pearl Harbor.

On 28 November, Admiral Kimmel sent USS Enterprise under Rear Admiral Willliam Halsey to deliver Marine Corps fighter planes to Wake Island. On 4 December Enterprise delivered the aircraft and on December 7 the task force was on its way back to Pearl Harbor. On 5 December, Admiral Kimmel sent the USS Lexington with a task force under Rear Admiral Newton to deliver 25 scout bombers to Midway Island. The last Pacific carrier, USS Saratoga, had left Pearl Harbor for upkeep and repairs on the West Coast.


More detail about status and location here: http://bluejacket.com/ww2_12-07-41_carriers.html

"That Others May Zoom"

Smithsonia

#3
Battle ships were the great prize. As of Dec. 7th 1941, no Carrier to Carrier battles had ever occurred. Aircraft carriers were thought to be raiders mostly and not decisive power projectors. Sinking the Bismark for instance was done as a stand off raider and not as a coordinated task force. Meaning carrier attack upon disputed land/island, port facilities, and ship convoy attack. Within in months  - at first the Battle of Coral Sea and then Midway in May/June '41... the Carrier and task force concepts were proved out.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/coralsea/coralsea.htm

As of Pearl Harbor Battleships were kings of the sea. Before December '41 Carriers were an afterthought or perhaps "lesser" thought is the best word. As of the Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea and Midway, Carriers reigned supreme. By Spring '42 and after Midway, no major Naval Battle was ever again decided by a Battle Ship, in the Pacific Theater.

What Navy accounts for this amazing transformational change in sea power tactics? Mostly the Japanese Navy which attacked Pearl Harbor from Aircraft Carriers.
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

PHall

Quote from: Smithsonia on March 01, 2011, 04:15:52 AM
Battle ships were the great prize. As of Dec. 7th 1941, no Carrier to Carrier battles had ever occurred. Aircraft carriers were thought to be raiders mostly and not decisive power projectors. Sinking the Bismark for instance was done as a stand off raider and not as a coordinated task force. Meaning carrier attack upon disputed land/island, port facilities, and ship convoy attack. Within in months  - at first the Battle of Coral Sea and then Midway in May/June '41... the Carrier and task force concepts were proved out.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/coralsea/coralsea.htm

As of Pearl Harbor Battleships were kings of the sea. Before December '41 Carriers were an afterthought or perhaps "lesser" thought is the best word. As of the Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea and Midway, Carriers reigned supreme. By Spring '42 and after Midway, no major Naval Battle was ever again decided by a Battle Ship, in the Pacific Theater. What Navy accounts for this amazing transformational change in sea power tactics? Mostly the Japanese Navy which attacked Pearl Harbor from Aircraft Carriers.

Not even the Battle Leyte Gulf?

Smithsonia

#5
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
PHall;
The Battle of Leyte Gulf featuring the Battle Ship Yamato was not a win for the Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf

The Yamato did plenty of damage but retreated under fire... some of that fire coming from my dear departed father-in-law who bombed it in 7 different sorties over 3 days from land based SB2Cs that were left behind by Halsey's task force. As he once stated to me regarding the Yamato; "I shot and bombed that thing for 3 days and never felt more frustrated in my life."

So while you can argue that the big gun battle ship made a dent, they didn't win the battle. Battle of San Bernardino Straights, Guadal Canal, Battle off Samar and several more - included BattleShips against other ships. None of those Battleship engagements changed either the specific battles or the war in general. If the truth be told... in both WW1 and 2 Battleships were
attention getting, fear mongering, saber rattlers and little else... except effective shore bombardment platforms.

Japanese losses in this action were twice that of the Allied loses and they also lost 2 Battleships: Yamashiro and Fusō
The invasion of the Phillipines continued unimpeded.
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

JohnKachenmeister

Ed:

While I agree that after the Doolittle Raid, the Carrier was King, I want to mildly disagree on your assessment of the role of the battleship before Pearl Harbor.

Your view that the battleship was the prize is a rather ethnocentric statement.  It is true that the US considered the battleship to be the prime ship of the line, and relegated the carrier to a secondary role, the Japanese view was entirely different.

The Japanese came out on the short end of the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty, and were forbidden to have more than a couple of battlewagons.  They adopted a carrier-based strategy in the 1930's out of necessity.  To the Japanese, the battleship was the secondary ship and the carrier the keystone of the fleet.

The Japanese fully intended to destroy the American carriers at Pearl Harbor, but Admiral Kimmel had sent them out with planes to reinforce Midway and Wake.  He took this action in response to the vague "War Warnings" from Washington that were sent after the Japanese diplomatic code was broken.   He believed that he would have time to sortie his battle fleet and meet the Japanese on the open sea, but wanted to keep them in the "Safety" of Pearl until the location of the Jap. fleet was known.

That is the tragedy of Pearl... Kimmel was not incompetent, he made decisions for good, sound, tactical reasons.  He just made the wrong decision.  We can point out those bad decisions now, because hindsight is always 20/20.

And... at Leyte Gulf the carrier was the dominant force.  Halsey could not have been diverted by a force of battlewagons, but he did find it imperative to chase the Japanese carriers.  Turns out they did not have enough pilots left to be a credible force, but were still useful as a diversionary force.  The world waits.
Another former CAP officer

lordmonar

I have to disagree.

While the Japanese were forced by the New York treaty to rely more on Aircraft Carries and smaller ships......Yamamoto was still of the old Battleship School.  The battle of Midway was planned with the main purpose of drawing what was left of the U.S. Battleships out of port and into a fleet engagment with the Imperial Navy.

But we ambushed them with our carrier task group instead.
PATRICK M. HARRIS, SMSgt, CAP

Smithsonia

#8
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Kach/Lordmar;
I don't have any major disagreement with your posts. However, the Japanese AND Americans were both Battleship-centric in the beginning of the War. Both built roughly twice the number of Battleships versus Carriers through 42. In '43 the US started cannibalizing hulls of various ships from Liberty ships to Battle Wagons for use as CVNs, CVAs (carriers and jeep carriers) The Japanese squandered their pilots, didn't keep up with carrier pilot training,  and post Midway - couldn't field an effective carrier born force. Meaning when the Battle of Leyte Gulf happened... they had not much left to shoot other than to than climb aboard the Battle-wagon band-wagon for a few last duels. So the problem with the Japanese Navy in WW2... they did more teaching than learning.

1. Protect Logistics. The US Oil Embargo of Japan for taking over Indonesian Oil fields was the Japanese Navy's reason for the Pearl Harbor attack. Battle ships control 4,000 square miles of sea. Aircraft Carriers control 40,000-60,000 square miles of open ocean. Japanese supply line couldn't be defended with Battleships. Problem: The Japanese didn't learn this lesson.

2. Forward Power Projection built on Maneuver. The Japanese start holding up in fortified islands - solution: spend less on these castles in the sand and more on carriers.

3. American Aviation Innovation versus Japanese. Once the Hellcat succeeds the Wildcat - the Zero becomes prey only. Result: The Corsair, Hellcat, and (Army) P-51 all were innovation with wings during a period that the once superior Zero remained static.

Meaning, the Japanese taught Carrier strike force tactics, but couldn't use these to their advantage as the industrial, technological, and natural resources of the US pulled us ahead. Don't forget that the US fought the Pacific war with one hand tied behind our back. We wanted to defeat Germany first. As originally planned the Pacific wasn't to be addressed until early '45. None of these determining factors of the WW2 Pacific action had anything to do with the Battleship. Meaning the Battleship was superfluous to winning the war. The greatest single task undertaken by a Battleship in WW2 - Japanese surrender onboard the Missouri - Meaning to the end a Battleship was a poseur. Meaning the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor taking out our battleships, while a terrifying first salvo in the larger picture... was a multitude of blessings coated in a deadly and smoking disguise.
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

JohnKachenmeister

Yamamoto was of the old battleship school, but readily endorsed carriers as the new wave of naval warfare.  He was much quicker to do so than the American admirals with the one exception being Halsey.

And, Ed, you are right about the production of battlewagons after the war began.  The Japs., no longer contrained by treaty, did begin to build some giants.  The Americans fielded the smaller Iowa class in larger numbers, but as you have already noted, the ship-to-ship battle envisioned by the Navy did not materialize.  The battleship was used for shore bombardment primarily.

For those short-bus riding special education students who did not learn the lesson taught by Professer Billy Mitchell in the sinking of the Ostfriesland, the make up test was the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales.  As impressive as they look underway, and as intimidating as they look sailing into a conquered Tokyo Bay, the zenith of the battlewagon was reached at the Battle of Jutland in the world war immediately preceeding World War II.

The airplane doomed the battleship, and the Japanese were doomed by their own racism and arrogance.

Another former CAP officer

Smithsonia

#10
I once was in the perfect place to bomb the USS Missouri. South of Bainbridge Island west of Seattle - It was maneuvering through the south pass.

I was coming out of Bellingham in a Twin Commander. I was in the soup and low enough not to interfere with the instrument pattern into Boeing Field... I think I was under 2000 ft. There was a sucker hole in the soup and I looked down.

Holy Mother of all that is Historian Nerdy.... there she was. THE USS MISSOURI!!!! I screamed with surprise and laughed until I coughed. Nothing looks like a Battleship. She was long, lean, balanced, and beautiful. Her wake was miles long and she was under full steam.

I knew that I'd never see a Battle ship under way ever again. I knew the Missouri was going to Hawaii for permanent display at Pearl Harbor. I knew I was the luckiest of pilots. Perhaps the last of the luckiest of pilots. I knew this was the fleeting last seconds of an age gone for bye. If I'd had passengers on my plane they'd have died of heart attacks, hearing my shouts of joy. If I'd accidentally clicked my mic I'd have lit-up the Norwest with epithets of unabashed glee... and I'd be in FCC prison to this day. Instead I had the pleasure alone and remember it like yesterday. The year was '97 or '98. But it was also 1942 or '43.

The sucker hole was a mile or two wide - the era passed from view in 20 or 30 seconds. I smile wider than the a human mouth can -  every time I think of that moment.
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

ol'fido

I believe that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor without the carriers present for the same reason we raided the POW camp at Son Tay, assaulted an island after the crew of the Mayaguez had already been released, and air assualted into the Shah-i-kat(forgive the spelling)Valley when we knew the Taliban controlled the high ground...The Tyranny of the Plan. When a major military operation like this is undertaken, many different and far flung pieces have to move and come together for the plan to be carried out. When the Japanese fleet sailed it was acting on the intelligence it had at the time which was that all the major ships of the Pacific fleet would be at Pearl Harbor.

After the fleet sailed, conditions changed. In 1941, a fleet movement of that size was not something you did on a whim. You can't turn a major strategic plan on and off like a water faucet. Perhaps, if the battle wagons had also sailed there would have been some major rethinking but we don't and will never know. Many military operations go forward simply because so much planning and work has gone into them that operational momentum takes over and the brakes can't be put on it without a game changing turn of events of monumental proportion.
Lt. Col. Randy L. Mitchell
Historian, Group 1, IL-006

starshippe

#12
. . thanks, all, for some very good discussion.
. . well it seems to me that he believed in air power over battleship power, because thats just what he did, used aircraft to attack battleships, quite successfully. and, the "third wave" of air strikes never happened because he was concerned about.... aircraft from the carriers.
. . in addition, it just doesnt seem that the attack accomplished much, militarily, as several of the ships that were "sunk," in forty feet of water, were refloated, refurbished, and rejoined the war. if these ships had been drawn out of the harbor to meet a battleship threat, and then also attacked with aircraft, those ships that were sunk would probably have stayed sunk.

thanks again, i enjoyed the discussions,
bill

Chief2009

#13
Quote from: Smithsonia on March 01, 2011, 03:35:12 PM3. American Aviation Innovation versus Japanese. Once the Hellcat succeeds the Wildcat - the Zero becomes prey only. Result: The Corsair, Hellcat, and (Army) P-51 all were innovation with wings during a period that the once superior Zero remained static.

Disagree that Japanese aircraft development remained static. The Ki-84 Hayate, Ki-100, and N1K2-J Shiden were in service, but a combination of shortage of good engines, lack of experienced pilots, and a lack of factories from B-29 raids kept them from really making an impact. but when they did encounter Hellcats and Corsairs they were solidly matched. Imagine good quantities of these fighters matched with experienced pilots. *shudder*

DN
"To some the sky is the limit. To others it is home" — Unknown
Dan Nelson, 1st Lt, CAP
Deputy Commander for Cadets
Illinois Valley Composite Squadron GLR-IL-284

Smithsonia

#14
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Chief2009;
I'll take that bet - See here: http://japaneseaircraft.devhub.com/
Developments that are non-fielded or sub-fielded mean little in warfare. Otherwise the German's with deployed jets AND rocket fighters would have ruled the skies over Europe. In this case the Japanese waited too long see the need to innovate and then to implement and deploy their innovation. Like the German rocket program - It just means your adversary during the war runs off with your innovation as war booty, after the war. In this manner you make your conqueror stronger. To this point - the percentage of US kills for each of our WW2 Navy aircraft only went up as the Pacific war progressed.

This was likely due to more experienced pilots for the Americans, a lot more planes, and the fact kamikazes aren't good for statistics or defense. In the case of the planes that you site... this wasn't a war settled by a demonstration flight. It was a fight to the death.

The A6M Zero was just a target at the end of the war. The pilots inside were canon fodder. The newly developed but un-deployed Japanese planes were as irrelevant as vanished dreams.  In life as well as combat timing is everything.

I've lectured about the end of the Pacific War for many years. The Q and A always comes down to "Why" did we use the A-Bomb. Wouldn't a demonstration in Tokyo harbor done just as much? The sad truth is no and for the reasons stated above. Only when Hirohito realized that there may be no subjects left to worship his throne did he throw in the towel. So it wasn't Hiroshima that caused the end of the war. It wasn't Nagasaki either. Amazingly enough it wasn't the Last 800 plane Tokyo raid of B-29s with incendiaries killing 50,000 - It was all of these events together - unending horrors night after night - and the signal that the emperor wouldn't be touched that made the unconditional surrender. It was the certainty of annihilation for an entire population. That is the unvarnished nasty but relevant final fact. The vision of a man alone and undefended on a throne without a surviving subject to call him Lord. War is hell... absolute unadulterated hell. AND tyrants are petty creatures with no hearts but the one in their puny chests.

So back to the advanced demonstration planes of the Japanese Navy. If the Hiroshima attack wasn't impressive to them... how impressive was Hayate or the Shiden to any of us?
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

JohnKachenmeister

#15
Ed:

I agree with you.  Japanese R&D came too little and too late in the war to make a difference.  That's why I accused them of racism and arrogance.  They thought that the weapons that defeated the Chinese were easily adequate against the jitterbug-dancing, zoot-suit-wearing American trash.

This pertained not only to aircraft, but to rifles, machine guns, and all other war materiel.  The US was able to field increasingly technically superior weapons (the M-1 Garand rifle being a good example).  The Jap. was stuck with weapons that were state-of-the-art in 1935.

Another point of departure in philosophy was in the area of pilot training.  Hap Arnold spent a lot on pilot training, starting even before the war began.  He drafted flight instructors, pulled experienced combat pilots out of action to assign them as instructors (a controversial decision that frustrated field commanders that ultimately proved to be a war-winning idea), and (here comes the assertion that the CAP-haters will argue with) directed the CAP to initiate a cadet program to prepare high school students for military life.

CAP did good on the coastal patrol, but even if you grant the claim of 57 attacks and 2 sinkings, CAP's principal contribution to victory in WWII was the cadet program that reduced the alarming washout rate at Randolph Field.  The US was the only nation that ended WWII with a SURPLUS of pilots, who then formed the backbone of the postwar airline boom.

The Japanese, on the other hand, had virtually no pilot training base.  By 1944, at Leyte Gulf, the Jap. carriers had planes, but not enough pilots.  They were useful only as a diversion.  One of the weaknesses of the kamikaze program was that while they had plenty of suicidal volunteers, they did not have enough flight instructors to even give rudimentary training to them in meaningful numbers.

Another former CAP officer

Sleepwalker

Ed,

  You are right as usual.  The Japanese Navy still did not regard the Carriers as important as Battleships as late as June 1942, in spite of having recently fought Carrier engagements at Pearl Harbor and in the Coral Sea.  The  evidence for this is how the Carriers were used as a screening force for the Battleships which were steaming many miles behind toward Midway Island.  They clearly thought Carriers should be used to protect the Battleships, and not the reverse.  We will probably never know why they thought this way, but it took losing their entire Carrier force at Midway to realize how much they needed them.               
A Thiarna, déan trócaire

Sleepwalker


  With this mindset, it is likely that Japanese Naval command cosidered the American Battleships to be the prime targets.  Although they would probably have liked to have struck the Carriers as well, that must not have been their top priority.  Their concern for the whereabouts of our Carriers probably had more to with worry over a stray American Carrier-based scout plane discovering their large task force and ruining the 'surprise' attack on Pearl, rather than considering the Carriers a real threat.

All of this is, of course, debatable and only my personal theories.     
A Thiarna, déan trócaire

BillB

The "scout planes" were PBY's out of Hawaii, not carrier based aircraft. The two U.S. carriers were enrouter or Guam or Midway and the decks were loaded with tracraft being transferred to those Islands. Nevermind the aircraft were in great part old Brewster Buffolos and a few wildcats, the carriers didn't launch any scout aircraft.
Gil Robb Wilson # 19
Gil Robb Wilson # 104

Sleepwalker

(Respectfully, you should re-read my post. I don't think you understand what I am saying)
A Thiarna, déan trócaire